


even when the dark comes crashing through

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Tumblr Prompt Responses [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Gen, alternate beginning for 2x01, and doug kendall, mentions of domestic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29028939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: It’s as though the universe is somehow on her side for once because the very first person she sees, talking to two people as the three of them stand by an ambulance, is her brother. He’s smiling and laughing, the kind of laugh when he throws his head back when he’s found something hilarious and the other two laugh along with him and for a second, she wants to run out of there and leave him to his good life.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley
Series: Tumblr Prompt Responses [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129619
Comments: 24
Kudos: 110
Collections: 9-1-1 Tales





	1. Chapter 1

Maddie takes a breath as she looks up at the building in front of her, wondering if it was too late to turn around and go home. It had been three days since she had packed a bag and drove away from the home that she had shared with her husband for over ten years. It would be a few more before he realised that, not only was she ignoring his calls whilst he was away on a conference but she wasn’t home, either. 

This hadn’t been the plan, not really, Maddie had just thought… she could keep on running, probably for the rest of her life in an attempt to save her life. But when she had started driving, she realised that she wanted to see her little brother again, she wanted to say goodbye because the rest of her life could only possibly take two paths - running until something happened to her or Doug separately of each other, or him finding her and killing her, just as he had always promised. This could be her only chance to see Evan, even if it only for a few days. She was just passing through, just for what he would see as a fleeting hello but in reality, was probably a final goodbye. 

Still, he might not even be on shift but… maybe someone there can tell her where he lives. Maybe the universe will work in her favour just this one time. Maybe this was all one huge mistake and she can go home and face the consequences of not answering her phone for the last few days when Doug returns from his conference. Trembling fingers clench around the card she holds in her hand, the same one that had given her a fleeting sense of hope about six months previously. The smiling face of her brother, looking happier than she had ever seen him, as though he had finally found his home. Perhaps it was selfish but… she needed to see for herself that, after three years of not knowing him or what his life was like… she wanted to make sure that he was absolutely fine without her. 

Maddie gulps down the lump in her throat, holding back the tears that so long to fall until she starts to walk towards the door. She wonders if Evan is angry at her, she can’t blame him if he is… she had just completely stopped picking up his calls, answering his texts… he’d even knocked on her door once and she had hid in the bedroom with her hands over her ears, telling herself it was for the best. She had to protect him, she was his big sister, his entire life had been about her trying to do what was best for him and keeping him away from Doug and away from the reality of her marriage was what was best. 

Each step is more nerve-wracking than the last, fists clenching tightly around the photograph in the hopes that someone will know him if he isn’t there and they can point her in the right direction because a third night sleeping in her car didn’t sound too appealing. She’s suddenly more than aware that she probably looks awful, she hasn’t showered in days, the bruise on the side of her face is in the process of healing which makes it look ten times worse than it already did. She’s aware and scared, not for the first time, that when she had packed a bag, she hadn’t thought about anything other than getting out of there. She should have stopped at a drugstore and got some makeup or something, to at least try and hide part of the reason she was there without her husband. Even if her brother is angry at her, she knows how deeply hurt he’ll feel being faced with the image of exactly  _ why _ she stopped talking to him in the first place.

It’s too late though, she’s already through the door and she can feel herself begin to panic, trying to rehearse what she’s going to say when someone spots her. It’s as though the universe is somehow on her side for once because the very first person she sees, talking to two people as the three of them stand by an ambulance, is her brother. He’s smiling and laughing, the kind of laugh when he throws his head back when he’s found something hilarious and the other two laugh along with him and for a second, she wants to run out of there and leave him to his good life. It’s just as Doug had always told her, Evan didn’t  _ need _ her and she didn’t  _ need _ him, they only needed each other. It’s with all the confidence she can gather within herself that she presses forward, “Evan?” 

Her voice stops him mid-sentence and suddenly three pairs of eyes on her and she’s more self-conscious than she’s felt in a long time. The woman is the first to react, stepping towards her with caution as the man looks between Maddie and her brother, as though he’s trying to decide what’s going on whilst Evan just… stares at her. Maybe she’s made a mistake, maybe the last three years can’t be forgiven and it was selfish of her to even think for a second that he would open his arms to her straight away. 

“I um, I’m just passing through and I wanted to see my little brother.” She tries to keep her focus on him, practically feeling the concern pulsating from the woman closest to her as she looks her up and down and she had almost forgotten how awful she looked whilst she looked into those blue eyes of her brother that she had missed so much. “I can go?” 

Blindly, she takes a step back, feeling the wariness of the two strangers nearest to her before her brother seems to snap himself out of his own thoughts, shaking his head, “No, I don’t… three years, Maddie. I haven’t heard from you in three years.” 

“I know and that wasn’t… it’s so complicated…. I-I don’t…” 

“Is Doug here?”

Maddie flinches at the mere mention of his name, finding her eyes darting around as though somehow, just saying her husband's name out loud will cause him to materialise in front of them. This is why she had to keep running because he could find her and if he found her in LA, with her brother, she didn’t want to imagine what he would do to Evan if he tried to get in the way. “N-no, I left him…” 

That seems to take him by surprise, which… isn’t too much of a shock considering she had spent sixteen years of her life with a man that her parents and her brother had hated from the very beginning. Maddie cannot count the number of times that the person standing in front of her right then had begged her to leave Doug, without even knowing the truth of what went on behind closed doors. One of the last times she had seen him in person, he’d been asking her to just… ditch everything and go to South America with him. But Maddie had a husband and a job and even if she wanted to travel with Evan, she’d always be looking over her shoulder. Her husband had made it clear what would happen to her if she ever thought about leaving. 

“I… seriously?” He takes another step towards her and she can see the confusion on his colleagues faces as she nods her head and bites down on her trembling bottom lip. “Did he do that to your face? Did you hurt you?” 

Maddie wasn’t sure she would ever be in a place to have this conversation with him, not really. He was… her younger brother, she was meant to protect him and the more he knew, the more he would hurt and as much as she knew he very rarely acted out of rage, she didn’t want to find out what her brother would do to Doug if he knew everything. Or what he would try to do. Still, there’s no getting out of the bruises on her face, as much as she would love to be able to, slowly nodding her head, her cheeks flushing from the embarrassment of confessing to something so… personal in front of two strangers. 

She hates herself for flinching away when he finally moves to wrap his arms around her, that self-loathing building up at the tears in his eyes before she forces herself to close the gap between them and wrap her arms tightly around his waist. They fall into silence for just a few moments when his arms fall around her, his touch gentle, apprehensive as though he either doesn’t want to hurt her or as though he’s scared she will disappear. 

“How long are you here for?” Are the first words from his lips the second they pull back, and she can see the way he looks as though he’s either going to burst into tears or throw up, or a combination of the two when he truly takes in her appearance. 

“The road ahead awaits.” She whispers, trying to say it as blase as she possibly can, even though it’s been five minutes and she isn’t sure she ever wants to say goodbye to her brother ever again. Three years was too long, not to mention the years before that he had spent travelling whilst she had been in Hershey. Their conversations had become less and less, Maddie tired of forcing conversation, pretending that everything was fine, ignoring the comments he made about Doug.

“Yeah, well, I’m more worried about the road behind you, Mads.” It’s instinct to flinch back when his thumb gently brushes against the bruised skin around her eye, “He hurt you. Are you… Hen and Chimney…” He gestures with his head to the two people still standing there, awkwardly hovering as though they don’t know what to do or say, “they’re paramedics, they can… or just Hen?” Maddie hates how she can tell he’s trying not to cry as he talks, hearing it in his voice and seeing it on his face.

All she can do is force a small smile, “I’m okay, I promise.” Maybe not the full truth but she had been seeing to her own injuries for years, and this was the closest to ‘okay’ she had felt in such a long time, just seeing him in his element. Happy, with friends and… he looked so much better than he had the last time she had seen him. “Are you gonna properly introduce me to your friends?” It’s easy to put up those walls she had expertly created over the years, realising her brother hadn’t made any indication as to who she was to the two people looking at her right then. 

“Right, yeah,” The grin on his face is bright, turning to stand by her side as he wraps an arm around her shoulders, “Chim, Hen, this is Maddie… my big sister.”


	2. Chapter 2

Once her brother has shaken off the shock, she starts to see the excitement in his eyes and it’s a relief to know that she hasn’t completely destroyed the relationship they once had. She can remember their last conversation like it was yesterday; it hadn’t been significant, she had told him about her day, he had told her about his and then she’d said goodbye and she had told him she loved him. 

And then she had deleted and blocked his number and she felt so much like a coward for doing it but she had to protect him and in a way, it was self-preservation, too. Every time her husband caught her on the phone to her brother, she paid the price and Buck was starting to get restless. He kept asking for her to go see him or for him to come to Hershey and stay a few days and… it was dangerous. It was all getting too dangerous and she’d had no choice but to cut him off. 

Three years have passed and when she’s looking at her little brother, it feels like no time has gone at all but… also as though far too much time has gone. He looks older, happier and stronger, yet… there’s something in his eyes that she can’t quite put her finger on. Something she easily determines is to do with a woman he calls his girlfriend whilst he glosses over the fact he’s living in her apartment without her, and the rest of the 118 share a look. 

They’re sitting around the table in the station, everyone telling her stories about her little brother - some of which make her laugh and others causing a swell of pride deep within her when she realises just how far he’s home and how much his life has changed in three years. There’s still a glimpse of jealousy much deeper down because… his life has  _ changed _ and he’s moved forward and it’s amazing and she’s happy for him but it makes her realise just how much her own life stagnated. Sometimes, she still feels stuck at twenty-three, as though her world had just stopped turning when the heavy weight of that wedding ring had been slipped onto her finger and she’d truly believed her life was just beginning. It’s been twelve years since then and despite the fact she’d worked hard outside of her marriage, she still felt so incredibly…  _ stuck. _

“Maddie?” She glances up at her brother, realising she had been in a world of her own, staring down at the wedding ring she hadn’t taken off as she bites down on her lip. Twelve years was a long time and it wasn’t the first time she had left but she had promised herself it would be the last. Hindsight was a beautiful thing and Maddie longs to turn back time to when she was nineteen and staring into the eyes of a handsome doctor and walk away. Instead of blushing at his compliment and instead of taking the coffee he had offered her, she wishes she had politely declined and perhaps selfishly, allow someone else to take the brunt of his anger in the years that followed. “Are you okay?” 

His voice is kind but uncertain, his eyes lingering with sadness that she wishes she could take away but there’s nothing she can do. Knowing the whole truth won’t make her brother feel any better about himself and he’s managed to keep calm thus far, the thought of him trying to get in the way or doing something stupid… she’s his big sister and she has to protect him, even if she’s protecting him from himself. “I’m just a little tired.” She admits, knowing she’s sat there for two hours, on a particularly quiet night for the firefighters, listening to them tell her so much she didn’t know about the person who had always been such an important part of her life. Her heart aches at the memories she would never have and the things she had missed out on.

“Are you sure you don’t want Hen to check you over before…” Maddie’s cheeks flush with the embarrassment of a woman she barely knows seeing what remained hidden by her clothing, shaking her head before he can even finish the sentence. “Seriously, Mads, you look like you’re in pain and I don’t want to push you and I don’t want to tell you what to do but… Hen can help. You don’t… you don’t have to hurt anymore.” Those last few words cause an entirely new kind of pain, a tension in her stomach and her chest, a lump rising in her throat whilst she tries so hard to hold back the tears when she’s looking into his eyes and not seeing her twenty-seven year old brother anymore. He’s just her kid brother again for a few seconds and he’s looking at her as though he wants to protect her and she can’t bring herself to tell him that it’s too late. 

She’s almost relieved at the sound of her phone ringing, wondering who could be calling her at this time, before her eyes settle on the name of her boss back in Hershey. It’s strange, Laurie had told her she wouldn’t call her unless she absolutely had to which means it has to be important. “I’m sorry, I should…” She moves away with only a little difficulty as she gently presses her hand to her throbbing side, “Laurie?” 

“No, not your boss but I am in her office right now and evidently, you’re not in work.” Hearing his voice, even knowing that he’s not even in the same state as her, causes a wave of terror to wash over her. He knows what he can do to her… sometimes, he can have her trembling with just a single look, or a whisper in her ear when they’re in public, a supposedly gentle feeling of his hand pressed into her hip that served as a warning. If she goes home now, she knows exactly what will happen. It’s too late, she’s committed to leaving, she’s done the first hardest part which was walking out of that door and promising herself she would never go back to that house or into his arms. “Where are you, Maddie?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice sounds stronger than she feels, the words spat out through bitter teeth, “I’m not coming back.” The words taste bitter on her tongue because she wishes she could have said them years ago, she wishes she had never let it get this far but… in the midst of it all, she couldn’t believe it was happening to her. Truthfully, she still couldn’t. It was hard to distinguish between the handsome man with the soft eyes she had fallen for so quickly, and the man who would tower over her with a disappointed look on his face, and his hand in her hair as he told her it was her fault. 

“You don’t get to leave me, Maddie. I told you how this ends,  _ you _ don’t get to walk out on us.” There’s anger in his voice, the kind that sends her stumbling backwards a few steps and as illogical as she knows it is, her eyes dart around the station. She can see the concerned looks that her brother and his friends are giving her before Buck takes a step closer to her, stopped only by his Captain, clearly knowing that her brother taking the phone from her and making everything ten times worse (as impossible as it seems right then) won’t help anyone, other than give Doug any clues he needs as to where she is. “You know I’ll find you, I always do and you better hope that when I do, I’m in a better mood.” 

Maddie isn’t sure what comes first - whether he hangs up or she throws her phone before he gets the chance. It’s an overwhelming fear and rage within her that forces a scream from her throat, closing her eyes as tightly as she can when she hears a crashing noise from below before her brother wraps his arms around her and lowers her towards the ground. He whispers words of comfort in her ear but she can barely hear them over the sound of her own sobs; mortified but unable to stop herself from breaking down in front of a group of people she barely knows. The pain in her side intensifies and she wonders, not for the first time in the last three days, if she should just go home and face whatever punishment Doug has in store for her. But she wants to  _ live _ , she wants to learn how to breathe on her own again, she wants a chance at a life away from him and away from Hershey and… she’s thirty-five. She’s spent sixteen years loving a man who had hurt her in more ways than she would ever care to admit out loud or to herself. She just wants a chance. 

Maddie doesn’t know how much time passes before she finds the courage within herself to pull away from her brother, relieved to find that the people he considers to be his family had the decency to just… leave them to it, although she’s sure they’re not far away. “I’m terrified, Evan. He’s gonna… he said if I ever left him, he’d kill me. And he meant it.” Her voice cracks, and she hates herself for it because she had promised herself she wouldn’t drag him into the mess that was her life and she’s been there all of a few hours and he’s right there, right in the middle of something she had only ever wanted to protect him from. 

“I’ll protect you, Maddie. We all will. I know… I know one of the best cops in LA and… you don’t have to be alone. If you carry on running from him or if you go back to him, you’ll be alone. You don’t have to be. You can stay here… you… you can get a new job at a new hospital and you can… you can start over and if he comes, we’ll be ready.” She doesn’t know how they could ever be ready for the wrath of the man who sounded so determined to do what he had always promised her he would. 

Not being alone though… for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, that sounds… nice. Better than her plan to keep moving from state to state until the money she had hidden from her husband was gone and then… she had no plans. The only one that mattered had been putting as much distance between her and Doug as possible and she’d achieved that, for now. It was only a matter of time and she had only been running for three days and she was already exhausted. Still, her shoulders slump, a hand gently pressing against his cheek, “He’ll hurt anyone who gets in his way.” 

“Maddie… standing between you and anyone who tries to hurt you is exactly where I want to be. So let me. Please.” It takes her a moment, but she nods her head, “And please let Hen or Chimney look you over and then I’ll take you to Abby’s place and you can have a shower and you get some rest… as much rest as you need.” Again, she nods her head, too tired to say another word when the weight of everything that had happened over the last few days seems to weigh heavy on her chest and she finds herself snuggling a little more into her little brother in a way she wishes she didn’t have to. He shouldn’t be protecting her, she tells herself but his arms wrapped around her offer her the most comfort she’s felt in a long time and she soaks it in as much as she can. 

Maybe he’s right, maybe she doesn’t have to do this alone. 


End file.
